A person is alive when he is of use to many; he is alive when he is of use to himself. Slackers who hide out at home might as well be in the tomb. Go ahead and write it in marble above their door:
Preceded in death by themselves.
Seneca (4 BC – AD 65), Moral Letters to Lucilius (60.4)
Kurt at Cultural Offering helps us understand why we need a home office…
Don’t you pay bills? Do you budget? Plan things to do around the house? Do you have papers scattered in drawers and cabinets?
You know you need one. The next questions are music and desk.
Photo by Steven Neumann on Unsplash.
Ground down by lockdown? You could look at this as the ultimate Stoic test and attempt to live by the maxim:
“It isn’t the things themselves that disturb people, but the judgements that they form about them.”
In other words, like it or not, how we respond to things we can’t control is a choice. Nicholas Bate, as ever, has wise and pithy words, here and here and here…
Covid Career Goals, 7
1. To be measured by the value you create not just the time you put in.
…
5. To be constantly learning. Especially through mistakes.
Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash
Kurt Harden at Cultural Offering has Anton Chekhov’s eight qualities of cultured people…
They have no shallow vanity. They do not care for such false diamonds as knowing celebrities, shaking hands with …
Well worth studying and cultivating.
We find ourselves in vexed and vexatious times. Let it go.
Stop fretting and stressing over things you can’t control.
It isn’t the things themselves that disturb people, but the judgements that they form about them.
Epictetus (c.50 – 135), Handbook (5)
So…
Continue reading “Let it go – ancient advice for modern times”
Seth Godin posts a couple of considerations for independents.
Firstly, on time and deadlines…
It’s amazing how much slack people will give you if you’re proactive about what you see and what you know. No need to make promises you can’t keep, and no need to hide from the promises you’ve made.
Secondly on the different strategies available, along with the consequences…
1. Honor the noise in your head.
2. Embrace your market.
3. Stay busy.
Two pithy posts worth a deep ponder. Read them here and here.
Photo by Nicolas Hoizey on Unsplash
In your conversation, avoid talking at length or overmuch about your own exploits or the dangers that you’ve faced; for pleasant though it may be for you to recall your perils, it is not as for others to listen to everything that has happened to you.
Epictetus (c.50 – 135), Handbook (14)
Lay down from this moment a certain character and pattern of behaviour for yourself, which you are to preserve both when you’re alone and when you’re with others.
Epictetus (c.50 – 135), Handbook (33.1)
Men seek for seclusion in the wilderness, by the seashore, or in the mountains – a dream you have cherished only too fondly yourself. But such fancies are wholly unworthy of a philosopher, since at any moment you can choose to retire within yourself. Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul; above all, he who possesses resources in himself, which he need only contemplate to secure immediate ease of mind – the ease that is but another word for a well-ordered spirit. Avail yourself often, then, of this retirement, and so continually renew yourself.
Marcus Aurelius (AD 120 – 180), Meditations (4.3)